Labor Day marks the end of the summer movie-going season, but well before the holiday weekend’s first barbecue is fired up Hollywood studios and theaters nationwide have been getting torched.

Since the first weekend in May, moviegoers in the U.S. have spent $3.78 billion at the box office, according to the marketing data and analytics company comScore. That’s down nearly 16 percent from the same period last year.

And when it comes to the actual number of tickets sold, attendance in August dropped to a 25-year low. So it may be little wonder that stocks in two of the country’s largest movie theater operators, AMC and Regal Entertainment Group, are down 43 percent and 25 percent, respectively, since Memorial Day.

Hollywood should have seen this coming like a freight train, says Jeff Bock, senior box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations, Co.

“There’s been this huge switch over the last couple years where the most talked-about and the most chatted-about entities on the internet did not come out of movie theaters,” he said. “This summer, it was all about what happened on ‘Game of Thrones.’ Last summer, it was ‘Stranger Things.’ It’s a vast change from five or 10 years ago when the central water-cooler discussion was about the big movies that are coming out.”

With that, here are five take-aways from this summer at the movies.

1. Blockbusters & sequelitis

“Wonder Woman” ($407 million to date, according to boxofficemojo.com), “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” ($389.4 million), “Dunkirk” ($174 million) and “Baby Driver” ($103.9 million) were some of the most talked-about movies of the summer.

So were “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales,” “Transformers: The Last Knight” and “War for the Planet of the Apes” — but those three for the wrong reasons, as the latest installments from franchises that are well past their prime.

Count “Alien: Covenant” and “The Mummy” reboot as among the sequels that simply were ignored.

“With new streaming content all the time, studios have to realize what they’re up against and bring their A game,” Bock said. “From here on out, it’s not good enough to just put a Roman numeral beside your product and roll it out because audiences are going to reject it.”

It’s a lesson moviemakers need to learn soon. After 14 sequels this summer, more than a dozen already are scheduled each of the next two summers.

2. Do reviews matter?

While “Baywatch” capsized under poor reviews, “The Emoji Movie” overcame its status as the summer movie critics loved to trash the most — 8 percent (!) on the aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes — and managed to earn nearly $78 million.

To be fair, the movies were going after different audiences, with “Emoji,” produced for $50 million, the only one of that bunch aimed at kids. “Sick,” “River” and “Blonde” had budgets of $5 million to $30 million, so they were all traveling different paths to profitability.

3. Breakout stars

Gal Gadot and Tom Holland both soared this summer, the Israeli actress and model as the long-overdue female superhero in “Wonder Woman” and Holland as the latest actor to lead Marvel’s web-slinging franchise in “Spider-Man: Homecoming” ($320 million).

Stars shined behind the camera, too — most notably, Christopher Nolan, who helmed “Dunkirk.” The World War II film is being talked up as the year’s first true Oscar contender for best picture and director.

4. Second chances

Didn’t make it to the multiplex to see some of the summer’s best releases? Don’t fret because that’s what Amazon, the iTunes Store, Netflix, Google Play and DVDs are for.

Two of the season’s best-received comedies — “The Big Sick,” about a stand-up comic who cares for his comatose girlfriend; and “Girls Trip,” the only laffer to earn more than $100 million this summer — will be available on digital platforms starting Tuesday and Oct. 3, respectively.

Also due this fall is Steven Soderbergh’s “Logan Lucky,” starring Channing Tatum and Adam Driver. It likely will be coming to DVD in November.

And, “Baby Driver,” the fast-paced heist film that was made for $34 million and has netted nearly six times that worldwide, will be available on Oct. 10.

If you can’t wait to see them, all are still playing in a handful of theaters this weekend.

5. Looking ahead

Everyone enjoys a happy ending, and Hollywood is no different. So, with some cautious optimism, fall’s encouraging signs include “It,” the Stephen King adaptation that’s on track to open Friday to $60 million in ticket sales — a record debut for September. If this is any indication of its potential, within 24 hours after the debut of the movie’s initial trailer online, it racked up nearly 200 million views.

A veteran multimedia journalist, Jerry Rice has specialized in entertainment, features, travel and sports coverage. Assignments have taken him to the Oscars, Emmys and Grammys, plus other major events including the Olympics in Los Angeles and theme park and resort debuts in Anaheim, Lake Tahoe, Las Vegas and Orlando. In addition, as editor of Riverside Magazine, he has a leading role in producing a quarterly publication that highlights key players and important issues throughout that city.

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